The Eowyn Drabbles
by notesinred
Summary: This is a series of drabbles I started about Eowyn's life, starting from the beginning. 1st person
1. in the stables

When I was very small, too small yet to do anything else, I used to go down to the stables to watch the horses. No one minded me being there, or there were no grumblings that _I_ heard. (There were advantages to being the King's niece.) In the mid-afternoon, the sun would pour in great, wide shafts through the high windows. They seemed so tall then! I had to crane my neck to see the arches, as powerful and graceful as the neck-crests of the meara. At that time of day, most of the meara were gone with their riders, but the coats of those left shone like the burnished bronze on Uncle's throne. When a fly would land on one of their backs, all of the muscles would shift ponderously, slower, then faster, like an earthquake rumbling—but a small movement, still, and the light would change and dance off of their coats. The light through the windows was soft and I could see the dust motes playing in it. Papa once told me about then that the stables of Rohan could rival in beauty the hallowed halls of the Kings of Gondor, and in those moments, I could well believe him…


	2. a childhood ahorse

I got my first pony when I was five. I was so angry that Eomer got one first! I saw no reason why he should, just because he was the boy. (To my understanding, he felt the same way for Theodred.) There were plenty enough horses in Rohan. After I got him, though, Hala became my best friend, as much as my brother. The villagers soon grew used to seeing the tiny girl with the mouse-colored pony come and go; to this day, I have no idea why I was allowed so much freedom. By that time Papa and Mother were dead, so I suppose Uncle thought that he did me a kindness by letting me run free-though for a king, surely he lacked foresight on _this_ matter. Oh, but Hala. presented him to me on Uncle's behalf with his characteristic gruffness, but that was just as well. Any theatrics of presentation would have been lost on me: My eyes were only for the sleek, plump, fluffy-maned and bushy tailed (deceptively soft-looking) little beast with the calculating eyes.

He was not an easy pony, but he taught me a great deal. I learned to respect him, and he in return gave me the prickly sort of affection only to be found in a certain sort of person. We used to ride off in the hills, at first with my brother and cousin, and later on our own when they tired of our company. I'm sure Uncle would have beat those two for leaving the future shieldmaiden to her own devices, but he was always underestimating me. It was one of his charms, you know, if an irritating one. –It was one of the saddest days of my young life when Hala grew too old for our rambles, and I too big. He was later pastured with a family in the village with need of a pony, but I would often go to visit him, though never with my new (larger) horse. That would have been inexcusable, and much begrudged by the pride of ponies.


	3. just a bit of a girl

A solemn, golden little child I was. I was too proud to play with the girls, and the boys rarely accepted me aside from Eomer and Theodred. The guardsmen, then, it was who were my friends. "Eowyn, see! Don't hold it so: a fight is a dance, girl! Feel it. Try that block again. –No! Again! Good..." And what other girl could be so happy with her playacting as I was with my fighting?


	4. becoming

Uncle was always very kind to me. At times, he turned a blinder eye to my adventurings than he should have, but still, I think he felt sorry for me. The boys' education he took seriously, but not mine...at first. Yes, it was traditional for a "shieldmaiden" to know how to use a shield, but he would have liked for me to go no farther than the shield. He loved me and respected me—I demanded that much—and I think he understood me, very well. He wanted to see my steel sheathed in velvet, because the sword is safer there; but all along, only a fool can't see the sword-shape past the embroidery and trappings. He knew, he did. He may have been other things at times, but Uncle was no fool. The last act of pity he ever did for me was give me the sword. From then on, he could treat me unfairly, but pity and the Shieldmaiden are never uttered in the same breath by any but those that can defend themselves. From the moment it came to me, that's what I became...


	5. sword of the shieldmaidens

A pretty bit of steel, she was. Fast, and wild, but light: the pommel-bronze with the wildly dancing, flickering horses with the twining manes caught my attention first. Their eyes were grave, and old, but free and wild as only the meara can be. The more I watched them leap and plunge their way across the hilt, the more real they seemed until I could almost hear them scream and sigh with a bloodlust that I did not yet know. They held me, eye to eye, before recognizing me with hungry, feral recognition. I was not the first they had seen, so. Now—only now—I was permitted to let my eyes slide down the blade, but still I felt them watching, pausing for a watching from their hot, eternal dance.

Iron: It is a precious metal among the Rohan, more than gold or silver or shiny stones. The blade was old then, and slightly tarnished, but the blue still rippled under the spiderwebbed black. I ran my finger down the edge, and at the point I watched as a single—no, two, three—drops fell on the blade. I angled it, fascinated, to let them slip, slowly at first down the iron gutter in the balance, back to the twining horses.

It hit them, and I watched the red hit the yellow and spread out along the sculpted knotwork, leaving the raised bits to rise free. The shine of the bronze was made shinier for a moment with the wet...and the meara danced wild.


End file.
